The Foreigner on the Periphery

The dragons' battle grew even more intense.

Everywhere, roars echoed back and forth—brainwashed dragons broadcasting their fighting spirit even as their bodies were crushed, and the defenders fighting back, horrified by their gruesome condition. Pushed to the absolute limit, the cries from both sides sounded like the howling of beasts.

Even then, Jump Magic continued to activate, and the number of dragons crossing over to Earth increased.

While conversing with Minjun, Asiph-1 tracked the tide of battle through the consciousness of the priests. He knew he had to wait until an even greater number crossed over.

Starting too early would mean failure.

But if he started too late, Minjun would lose his patience and act on his own terms.

The problem was timing.

"Yes, the Demonic Goblin. A special goblin, born very rarely, who possesses a Supernatural Ability."

A special goblin.

"Supernatural Ability..."

"Yes, goblins do not naturally manifest a Supernatural Ability. However, when rare conditions are met, the power is qualitatively concentrated into a single individual within the group. It acts as compensation for the temporal opportunity cost of such an entity going unborn for so long."

These were concepts he normally would never have understood, yet Dong-cheol comprehended them.

He could even understand the words Minjun muttered like a groan.

"Temporal opportunity cost? You make their birth sound like a matter of choice."

He fell silent in thought for a moment.

"Come to think of it, that goblin named White Eyes also seemed to twist temporal causality."

Asiph-1's eyes sparkled. Fortunately, Minjun was still listening.

"It is logically impossible. Adjusting the causality of events that could have occurred in the past but didn't, and concentrating them into a single point in time... that is an impossible concept without touching time itself. And today, I learned what kind of power can transcend even the realm of time."

Asiph-1 spoke with absolute certainty.

"The power of a Demonic Goblin is, in fact, an ability of the same nature as Divine Power."

"What did you say?"

Minjun's face contorted.

He cast a glance at Dong-cheol.

"But the power I feel from him is completely different from Divine Power. You should know that."

"The source is the same, but the method of manifestation is different."

At this point, Asiph-1 realized he needed to bring up the story of the ghost he had met in the mental world.

When he explained it as briefly as possible, Minjun looked far more shocked than expected.

"..."

The story of how Ha Eun-seong—who had indeed originated from his fragment—had mixed with the blood of their slumbering kin and flowed into all space and time.

The truth that the source of Divine Power was that very ghost.

As Minjun listened, he wore an expression Asiph-1 had never seen before.

Watching his tightly clenched fists turn white, Asiph-1 explained.

"As I said, Divine Power manifests when a person's mind becomes entangled with 'him.' Then, what element of the heart is the part that entangles? What is the connection... the commonality between the priests of the order and the holy soul?"

Asiph-1 spoke from his own experience.

"I have observed the minds of the priests for a long time. So the hypothesis I formed was that Divine Power is a force that reacts to a person's 'faith' and 'hope.' It sounded quite plausible. Because when they affirmed a god and made a wish, Divine Power manifested."

That theory had been disproven today.

"But today, I learned that I was wrong. First of all, faith and hope cannot even be seen as words that define the Holy Spirit. Faith is merely one of the conditions for the power to manifest, and hope is the factor that determines the form of its manifestation."

"Then, what is the real condition?"

If religious faith wasn't a mandatory element of Divine Power, why had it only been found in priests up until now?

What was the common denominator that allowed religious people to commune, or sympathize, with him?

Asiph-1 answered.

"The condition for the manifestation of Divine Power is 'self-transcendence.'"

Minjun's eyes widened slightly.

Dong-cheol couldn't understand from this point on. The conversation had crossed into a realm he couldn't comprehend just by hearing the words without prior knowledge.

"It is the aspiration to overcome the prison of the self, the iron bars and fences that confine oneself. Thus, it is the desire to achieve complete freedom. Usually, people only seek self-liberation after they die. But the priests desired it while alive, achieved it—even if only partially—and became entangled with him."

"Wait, what does that have to do with religion?"

"Because religion is the easiest path for a living person to experience self-liberation. It's impossible in real-world relationships. A living person unconsciously recognizes that others are imperfect and incomplete beings. They criticize and remain guarded. Because of that, one cannot fully dedicate oneself to another person."

But creating a perfect and complete fictional entity made it possible.

"So they imagine a god who represents infinity, and then they obey and submit. They want to integrate and transcend their limits. Instead of crushing themselves before a god, they are able to give themselves exactly as they are. This is the 'self-transcendence' of the priests."

Self-transcendence?

Being able to give oneself to others?

Dong-cheol felt his head spinning.

He couldn't understand every word, but he vaguely grasped that by believing in a god, a priest overcame the wall... or the fence that blocked their 'self.'

"But..."

And the goblin could only argue back as much as he understood.

"I... I don't have a religion..."

Dong-cheol was certain that he didn't believe in a god.

Asiph-1 looked at him and nodded.

"Yes, goblins are special. They evolved in a way that is different from others... a very cruel way."

"...?!"

"The priests of the goblin species awaken in a manner completely different from other races. A normal priest transcends by giving themselves over to a being that resides in a dimension impossibly high, an absolute or exceedingly rare power. But goblins commune horizontally and broadly. Instead of reaching high like the antennas of priests from other races, they embrace far and wide in all directions. He transcends by giving himself up for the sake of a multitude of others."

Meaning he instinctively recognized the consensus of the collective.

"When a crisis strikes the entire fence, the instincts of all the remaining goblins wanting to escape that situation awaken a single individual. He awakens a Supernatural Ability not for a god, but for his people."

Minjun once again thought of White Eyes.

"You mean he reacts with the collective unconscious trying to avoid extinction within their fence."

Asiph-1 affirmed.

"The way of non-goblin races and the way of goblins. Each has its pros and cons. The common method is, above all, safe. They gain power equivalent to their faith and devotion. But the limits are also clear. When one and one gather, they only become two. There is no synergy effect just because two or more priests gather. Their self-transcendence is extremely personal, because they transcended not through human relationships, but through a relationship with a conceptual being."

"But goblins are different," he said, looking at Dong-cheol.

"A Demonic Goblin is definitely powerful. To the point where a primitive Supernatural Ability that hasn't memorized a single line of an incantation can shatter the barrier of a space battleship. If that were replaced with the form of modern Magic, it might have blown away the ship's hull. He can unleash a power greater than the sum of all the possibilities harbored by the entire race. On the other hand, the drawback is..."

Minjun answered instead.

"The moment he manifests a power that surpasses his limits, his physical body and soul are completely crushed."

Dong-cheol let out a gasp.

A fate that was terrifying just to imagine.

If he really was a Demonic Goblin... did that mean he would end up like that someday?

"It is his fate to slowly awaken Supernatural Abilities one by one for the promised day, and when that moment finally comes, to unleash the power to avoid extinction and meet his end."

"The goblins on Earth should still be able to endure for a few generations. Why did he awaken so early?"

"It seems to prove that there is a crisis that can only be overcome if an awakener appears now and gathers power for a long time."

"In the first place, a goblin's lifespan isn't long enough to last several generations..."

Minjun stopped mid-sentence. It wasn't because he was afraid of hurting Dong-cheol's feelings, but because he thought he knew the answer.

White Eyes had awakened a psychic power to replace his eyesight in advance in order to avoid death and awaken as a Demonic Goblin.

If so, then Dong-cheol...

"...Perhaps he might awaken an ability that won't let him die, even after hundreds of years pass. Just so he can sacrifice himself as a Demonic Goblin when the time finally comes."

"Yes, it is a truly cruel system. To save everyone, one person shoulders far too great a risk."

Dong-cheol felt the hair all over his body stand on end.

And Asiph-1 was about to add one more word before swallowing it back. He was going to say that Dong-cheol's awakening could, in a way, symbolize a future where Minjun, ruling as a god, neglected the goblins of Earth as they went extinct.

Instead, he brought up the main point.

It was the moment when the screams of the dragons echoing all around gradually subsided, and the invading army noticeably swelled, beginning to cover the sky in black dots.

"So the soul I met proposed an experiment. Transcendence through a god, and transcendence through people. We would take only the advantages of those two methods."

It was the decisive moment.

Asiph-1 swallowed hard.

"I intend to prove the usefulness of Divine Power through this method. Even if all the priests of the order gathered right now, they wouldn't be able to generate as much energy as we'd get from slaughtering the Kavite. And the fact that you, Father, cannot freely use their Divine Power is also a problem. Because the incantation to awaken the primordial race can only be chanted by you."

Asiph-1 spoke, desperately hoping that Minjun wouldn't get angry or reject it flat out.

"So I... I want to try entangling the minds of the four of us right here, right now."

Asiph-1's gaze swept over the entranced Fourth, Dong-cheol with his blank expression, and finally Minjun with his hard-to-read eyes.

Fortunately, Minjun didn't immediately walk away—this was the same Minjun who had rejected a will written with his old friend's life because he hated the idea of another person's ego mixing into him any further.

But Asiph-1 knew this didn't mean acceptance. It seemed he was just willing to hear him out to the end.

Asiph-1 pointed at the son of the spider dragon.

"Fourth will act as the medium for Divine Power. He has scattered the dust of Divine Power all over Earth for seven days. Thanks to that, ordinary people who originally had no motive for self-transcendence now harbor a tiny fragment of it. It's not enough for each of them to awaken Divine Power on their own, but if we harvest and gather the seeds we've sown, it's a different story."

Of course, the success rate of the seeding wouldn't be one hundred percent.

"There's a high probability that it will be meaningless to most of the dragons fighting in the sky over there. Because they are a race that finds it very difficult to overcome the fence called 'self'."

But he was certain that the vast majority of people could resonate with it.

"And since Fourth is... currently the one most deeply entangled with the source of Divine Power on this planet, he will also act as the door leading to him."

After explaining why Fourth's mind needed to be entangled, Asiph-1 spoke of his own usefulness.

"Because I am also human, I have been exposed to the dust of Divine Power and harbor a little bit of it. Through Fourth, who is scattering the medium, I intend to reach the unconsciousness of all the people on Earth. Of course, I don't have the power to brainwash all 8.5 billion of them. I'm merely dropping a small seed of thought. So that their hopes will rise to the surface."

He stared at the pandemonium being created by the dragons.

The current situation was already being broadcast all over Earth.

Ordinary people were trembling in fear that the end of the year would also mean the end of the planet called Earth.

"And, to reiterate, a Demonic Goblin... Dong-cheol will act as the antenna receiving the signals. If Fourth spread the fragments across the entire planet, Dong-cheol can gather their consensus into one place."

Minjun interjected again.

"But shouldn't there be a species restriction on the Demonic Goblin's communion? Even if you gather all the goblins on Earth, their numbers are merely..."

Asiph-1 actually welcomed the interruption.

It was proof that Minjun was taking him seriously.

"Right now, Fourth is acting as the medium. Also, the reason why most Demonic Goblins, including White Eyes, could only commune with their own kind was that they never had to mingle with other races throughout their lives. At most, it would have been a slave master tormenting them. It's an ability that evolved assuming such situations in the first place. But Dong-cheol is different. You don't necessarily have to set the meaning of life according to the dictates of your genes."

"...Ah."

Dong-cheol thought he understood his idea. He turned his head and looked at Minjun.

If it had been back when he was living homeless in the back alleys, one could say Asiph-1's words were right. Back then, 'people' to Dong-cheol meant only goblins.

But Minjun had taken him out of there.

And helped him live intermingled with other races.

"The soul I met in the mental world was certain. That Dong-cheol's fence stretches beyond the boundaries of his race."

"And what if that guy's body and soul melt away in the process?"

"To prevent that from happening, Father's mind must also be intertwined."

"..."

This was it.

Asiph-1 did his best to keep his voice from trembling.

"If that immense power is blasted out as a raw, unrefined gemstone, just as the previous Demonic Goblin did... it will be dangerous, no matter how deeply intertwined it is with the will of the majority of Earth's people. We need someone to manifest that power safely, in the form of an intricate incantation. The harvested Divine Power will not manifest through Dong-cheol."

The source of Divine Power, that soul, was also an entity derived from Minjun.

Even if it was only a temporary phenomenon, the Holy Spirit predicted that the mental union of the original and the derivative would manifest in a much more stable and safe form than that of a Demonic Goblin.

It meant his body and soul wouldn't melt away.

"In any case, don't you also need proof that you, Father, can wield Divine Power as you desire?"

Asiph-1 was saying it outright.

That he would harvest the seeds scattered among the majority of the people on Earth over the past seven days, and offer them to his altar.

"..."

From Minjun's perspective, this might not sit well.

He could ask why they had to take such a complicated and uncertain detour while causing 'this kind of uproar' when there was a more certain method.

He could ask what reason there was to bear such a risk.

But Asiph-1 believed he had done everything he could. The next step was simply to wait for Minjun's choice.

An instant that felt like an eternity passed.

"I..."

Minjun answered.

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